Responding to one of the worst floods in recent Manipur’s history, the Hyderabad based Sahayata Trust have initiated an immediate relief work, providing ration and medicines to the poor and needy flood affected families.The trust has initially sanctioned ration for 1000 flood affected families and the relief work will start from Tuesday, July 25th from the valley districts of Manipur.Incessant rains in Manipur caused major rivers to overflow and displacing people living near the river banks. The flood crisis and landslides started with cyclone Mora that made landfall on May 29 and, under its influence, came heavy rains that lasted for almost 10 days. This was later followed by torrential rains and storms lasting for 10 more days in mid-June and the situation worsened when incessant rains began on June 29.Lower parts of the valley districts comprising—Imphal West, Imphal East, Bishnupur, Kakching and Thoubal—were submerged in water leaving thousands of people to live in relief camps. As of now 13 people have died in the floods.Also, nearly 40,000 hectares of agricultural land, which is about 20% of Manipur’s total agriculture area (1.95 lakh hectare), has been affected by floods.
Sahayata Trust Volunteer, Raees Ahmed from Manipur while briefing about the relief work said, “All the districts of Manipur are affected by the floods, but the valley districts of Imphal east, Imphal West, Thoubal, Bishnupur are more affected . The water has receded in many districts now and that’s why we have decided to initiate the relief work as the poor and needy people are in urgent need of supply of food grains as floods have washed away everything.”“In each Kit we have included 15 kg rice, pulses, oil, onion, garlic, sugar and other spices. It also includes a medical kit,” he added.Syed Abdul Najeeb, project manager of Sahayata Trust, have reached the flood affected districts of Manipur to supervise and coordinate the relief work with local team of volunteers.“The condition is worse. We surveyed many areas and found that people in Thoubal district are in dire need of relief, so we will start tomorrow with them and reach out to people in the other districts as well in coming days,” he said.CEO of Sahayata Trust, Syed Anees Uddin said, “The relief was made possible by the generous donations from the Indian people living abroad.”